ALBUM REVIEW: Lockstep – I Know What I Saw



Nashville’s Lockstep has nailed the classic Shoegaze sound on their new album I Know What I Saw (Profound Lore). All the key elements a youngster looking to discover the genre are in place. They have the drunken warble of the guitars, the breathy coo of the androgynous vocals. All things that you can probably buy patches for on your Digital Audio Workstation. They might have captured it just right, but that is a matter of just dialing things in right. The real question is, can they write songs? A question that should be asked of any genre from shoegaze to grindcore. This album does sound great through headphones, so they have taken great care in capturing these songs in the studio. But what about the songs? This is the question we are looking to answer here. 

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ALBUM REVIEW: Sparkler – Glidewinder


Given the critical backlash and derision Shoegaze garnered in the nineties at the hands of the British music press and publications such as the NME and Select, who favoured bland sixties Britpop revivalism (Oasis, Blur, Supergrass take a bow), the resurgence in recent times has proven somewhat surprising. Continue reading →


ALBUM REVIEW: Nothing – A Short History Of Decay And Ruin


 

A Short History Of Decay And Ruin (Run For Cover Records) is Nothing‘s fifth album. It opens with a more organic feel as a new level of vulnerability is exposed with the strum of an acoustic guitar and the vocals stepping out from behind the indifferent haze of effects. A clever way to lure you into this album, it gives the impresion Domenic has stepped away from Shoegaze into some kind of Emo/Indie Rock, but by the time you get to the second song and lead single “Cannibal World,” it’s clear to see this is not the case, but he is still toying with the expectations of what Shoegaze can be as a break beat drum sample keeps the song moving. Yet the main vibe that consumes the overall sound is a return to the woozy swirl of My Bloody Valentine-influenced guitars.

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